(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Scientists have raised concerns about a large, rapidly thinning glacier in Antarctica, warning it could contribute significantly to rising sea levels. They say they've discovered two openings that could channel warm seawater to the base of the huge Totten Glacier and bring the threat of potentially disastrous melting. The glacier is bigger and thinning faster than all the others in East Antarctica. It contains enough ice to raise the global sea level by at least 11 feet (3.4 meters), according to researchers from the University of Texas at Austin who were among the authors of a new study published...

Explanation: Would you go to the end of the world to see a total eclipse of the Sun? If you did, would you be surprised to find someone else there already? In 2003, the Sun, the Moon, Antarctica, and two photographers all lined up in Antarctica during an unusual total solar eclipse. Even given the extreme location, a group of enthusiastic eclipse chasers ventured near the bottom of the world to experience the surreal momentary disappearance of the Sun behind the Moon. One of the treasures collected was the above picture -- a composite of four separate images digitally combined...

For more than 2 million years our earth has cycled in and out of Ice Ages, accompanied by massive ice sheets accumulating over polar landmasses and a cold, desert-like global climate. Although the tropics during the Ice Age were still tropical, the temperate regions and sub-tropical regions were markedly different than they are today. There is a strong correlation between temperature and CO2 concentrations during this time. Historically, glacial cycles of about 100,000 years are interupted by brief warm interglacial periods-- like the one we enjoy today. Changes in both temperatures and CO2 are considerable and generally synchronized, according to...

THE North and South Poles are “not melting”, according to a leading global warming expert. In fact, the poles are “much more stable” than climate scientists once predicted and could even be much thicker than previously thought. For years, scientists have suggested that both poles are melting at an alarming rate because of warming temperatures – dangerously raising the Earth’s sea levels while threatening the homes of Arctic and Antarctic animals. But the uncertainty surrounding climate change and the polar ice caps reached a new level this month when research suggested the ice in the Antarctic is actually growing. And...

Water is eating away at the Antarctic ice, melting it where it hits the oceans...And the melting is accelerating...Climate change has shifted the wind pattern around the continent, pushing warmer water farther north against and below the western ice sheet and the peninsula.

A World-Weary Puppy In Antarctica, Circa 1912 This poignant image (cheer up, buddy!) of a pup named "Blizzard" was taken in 1912 by Antarctic adventurer Frank Hurley, who two years later would be the photographer on Ernest Shackleton's famed Endurance Expedition. This shot is from the First Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which set out in 1911. Over a period of years, Hurley visited the frozen continent six times and came away with a trove of stirring images.

An enormous impact crater thought to have been created by a meteorite the size of a house smashing into Earth has been discovered in the Antarctic ice sheet. Scientists conducting a routine aerial research flight above East Antarctica noticed a strange ring-like structure in the normally flat and featureless ice. It appeared to be a series of broken 'icebergs' surrounded by a 2km (1.24 miles) wide circular scar, surrounded by a few other smaller circular scars in the ice.

Despite dire predictions that the North Pole would be ice-free in the near future, Arctic Sea ice levels have been more stable than scientists predicted. So far this winter, Arctic Sea ice levels are above where they were at the same time last winter and are well within the the standard deviation of the 1981 to 2010 variation, according to daily sea ice data.Europe’s CryoSat-2 satellite found that sea-ice volumes for the fall of 2014 were above the average extent for the last five years. Sea-ice levels were up sharply from 2011 and 2012, according to the satellite– only slightly...

WELLINGTON (AFP) – Two blocks of butter have been found intact after nearly a century in an Antarctic hut used by British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on his doomed 1910-12 expedition, a report said. Television New Zealand reported that conservators found the two blocks of New Zealand butter in bags in stables attached to the expedition Hut at Cape Evans in Antarctica. The extreme cold of the polar region has preserved the hut and expedition equipment inside, but recent signs of deterioration had prompted the Antarctic Heritage Trust to launch a preservation project. The trust's Lizzie Meek said the butter...

**SNIP** That New Year’s Eve an interview with expedition leader Chris Turney was beamed live to Times Square in New York. Two days later, the rescue effort entered a new phase. With no icebreaker able to smash way through, a Chinese helicopter, Xue Ying, or “Snow Eagle”, rose into the air for the first of five flights to ferry passengers from the stricken ship to the Aurora Australis. A core crew remained behind to sail vessel home once conditions allowed. Media interest in the expedition faded after the rescue, but in the year since Turney and his team have been...

Antarctic sea ice reached a record high this year, topping 20 million square kilometers (nearly 8 million square miles) in September — a milestone it hadn't touched since 1979. It's a fact climate change deniers are fond of repeating. If the planet is warming, shouldn't sea ice be melting away rather than growing? It's true that the phenomenon is a confusing one — but it's no proof that climate change isn't happening. In fact, scientists believe that climate change is actually responsible for the strange events down in the Antarctic. The first thing to note is that sea ice and...

Yesterday I posted this quote from Elizabeth from the Will Steger Foundation global warming expedition to the artic.............. It felt so good to be back on trail. The weather was relatively warm for this time of year, there was little wind and the sun was shining. The mountains plunge dramatically to the ice on all sides. The U-shape of the head of the fiord ahead of us gave us a clue to the glaciations that sculpted this land, grinding away the granite to leave sheer walls of bare rock. I felt like I was inside an I-Max movie. I couldn't...

Antarctica's ice paradox has yet another puzzling layer. Not only is the amount of sea ice increasing each year, but an underwater robot now shows the ice is also much thicker than was previously thought, a new study reports. The discovery adds to the ongoing mystery of Antarctica's expanding sea ice. According to climate models, the region's sea ice should be shrinking each year because of global warming. Instead, satellite observations show the ice is expanding, and the continent's sea ice has set new records for the past three winters. At the same time, Antarctica's ice sheet (the glacial ice...

The first time marine biologist William Haddad and his team saw a seal rape a penguin, they were shocked.By the fourth time, they were convinced this bizarre behavior was becoming a trend.For 50 years, researchers from the marine mammal program at the University of Pretoria in South Africa have been taking weekly censuses of the elephant seal population on sub-Antarctic Marion Island, more than a thousand miles south of Cape Town in the Indian Ocean. In 2006, they saw something they'd never seen before. A fur seal (not the species they were studying) mounted and appeared to mate with a...

Antarctica's ice paradox has yet another puzzling layer. Not only is the amount of sea ice increasing each year, but an underwater robot now shows the ice is also much thicker than was previously thought, a new study reports. The discovery adds to the ongoing mystery of Antarctica's expanding sea ice. According to climate models, the region's sea ice should be shrinking each year because of global warming. Instead, satellite observations show the ice is expanding, and the continent's sea ice has set new records for the past three winters...

Although not designed to map changes in Earth's gravity over time, ESA's extraordinary satellite has shown that the ice lost from West Antarctica over the last few years has left its signature. More than doubling its planned life in orbit, GOCE spent four years measuring Earth's gravity in unprecedented detail. Scientists are now armed with the most accurate gravity model ever produced. This is leading to a much better understanding of many facets of our planet – from the boundary between Earth's crust and upper mantle to the density of the upper atmosphere. The strength of gravity at Earth's surface...

Paris (AFP) - Sea levels around Antarctica have been rising a third faster than the global average, a clear sign of high meltwater runoff from the continent's icesheet, scientists said on Sunday. Satellite data from 1992 to 2011 found the sea surface around Antarctica's coast rose by around eight centimetres (3.2 inches) in total compared to a rise of six cm for the average of the world's oceans, they said. The local increase is accompanied by a fall in salinity at the sea surface, as detected by research ships. These dramatic changes can only be explained by an influx of...

An entire ecosystem has been discovered under the Antarctic, raising hopes that life could exist in extreme environments, such as other planets in the solar system. Researchers have discovered that tiny life-forms are thriving in a lake under half a mile of pack ice, even though the habitat has not seen sunlight or fresh air for a million years. The discovery has led to excitement among the scientific community who had previously theorized that microorganisms may be able to survive by evolving novel ways to generate energy. And it raises the possibility that similar life could exist on Mars or...

Antarctica, the coldest place on Earth, teems with microscopic life. Tiny organisms dwell on the ice and live inside glaciers, and now, researchers confirm, a rich microbial ecosystem persists underneath the thick ice sheet, where no sunlight has been felt for millions of years. Nearly 4,000 species of microbes inhabit Lake Whillans, which lies beneath 2,625 feet (800 meters) of ice in West Antarctica, researchers report today (Aug. 20) in the journal Nature. These are the first organisms ever retrieved from a subglacial Antarctic lake. "We found not just that things are alive, but that there's an active ecosystem," said...

British scientists are stranded after their Antarctic base lost power in the depths of winter as temperatures plummeted to a record low of minus 55C. There is no way of rescuing the 13 researchers from the Halley VI Research Station - which has been hit by a 19-hour blackout - for months until the hostile winter subsides. The British Antarctic Survey admitted it was a 'serious incident' and has suspended all experiments as the workers heat up emergency accommodation which has not been used for months. Some of the fallout from the power cut, which happened a week ago but...

Lying with Statistics: The National Climate Assessment Falsely Hypes Ice Loss in Greenland and AntarcticaPosted on July 6, 2014 by Guest Blogger by E. Calvin Beisner and J.C. KeisterHow fast are Greenland and Antarctica losing ice?If you trust the National Climate Assessment (NCA), you’ll think, “Very fast!” And that’s intentional. The aim is to provoke fear so the American public will support the Obama administration’s aim to spend $Trillions fighting global warming.Here’s how the NCA (in Appendix 4, FAQ-L) depicts the rate of loss from the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica: Pretty steep declines, right? Downright scary.But if there’s any...

Antarctic sea ice has hit its second all-time record maximum this week. The new record is 2.112 million square kilometers above normal. Until the weekend just past, the previous record had been 1.840 million square kilometers above normal, a mark hit on December 20, 2007, as I reported here, and also covered in my book. Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, responded to e-mail questions and also spoke by telephone about the new record sea ice growth in the Southern Hemisphere, indicating that, somewhat counter-intuitively, the sea ice growth was specifically due to global warming....

The Thwaites glacier is one of the most rapidly changing in Antarctica. It’s been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks, after scientists suggested that this sector of the huge West Antarctic Ice Sheet was already on route towards collapse due to warming ocean temperatures. A major collapse of this part of the ice sheet could have dire consequences worldwide, with a global sea level rise of potentially up to 1m. Some models suggest this could take place comparatively rapidly, within a few centuries. But hidden beneath the kilometres of ice in this rapidly changing part of the...

Antarctica Rising: Uplift Rate Suppresses Conventional Geology by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Land is not supposed to rise this fast. Generations of geologists have been trained to think in terms of slow and steady processes to explain Earth features. New results show that the continental crust underlying Antarctica is rising rapidly as parts of its massive ice sheet have been melting away. This unexpected bounce might help better position the timing of similar effects that occurred in northern North America near the close of the Ice Age. Since 1995, entire ice shelves the size of cities have been falling from...

Guest essay by Larry HamlinIPCC report shows Antarctica has “negative contribution to sea level” over the 21st centuryThe recent ridiculous and scientifically flawed media claims of large Antarctica related sea level rise impacts due to “unstoppable” glacier ice loss supposedly reflected in two recent scientific papers looks even more absurd when these made up claims are compared against the Antarctica scientific findings of the UN IPCC AR5 WGI climate report.Recapping the wonderfully informative reporting by the major “news” networks on May 12 about these two Antarctica ice loss studies we have: NBC’s anchor Brian Williams asserting that these new...

According to the French, we only have 500 days to avert a worldwide climate crisis. We should all be in a panic because Antarctic glaciers might melt in the next century. The affect of this may not be felt for 1,000 years. That’s assuming any of the supposedly scientific prediction models can be believed. They’re 95% inaccurate, usually erring on the side of hysterics. Obviously we must do something, which in the leftist climate change world usually means big government action. One wonders what government will do to stop underground volcanoes from warming Antarctica. No doubt a stern lecture from...

Two teams of scientists say the long-feared collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun, kicking off what they say will be a centuries-long, "unstoppable" process that could raise sea levels by as much as 15 feet. "There's been a lot of speculation about the stability of marine ice sheets, and many scientists suspected that this kind of behavior is under way," Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a news release about one of the studies published Monday. "This study provides a more qualitative idea of the rates at which the collapse...

On Monday, May 12, all three network evening newscasts hyped the dire consequences of a new NASA study which show that “large parts of the western Antarctica ice sheet appears to have collapsed.” ABC, CBS, and NBC hyperventilated over the report, and warned of rising sea levels in the immediate future. CBS News’ Elaine Quijano warned “A 10-foot rise in sea level would submerge tunnels and subways here in Manhattan and parts of Queens and Brooklyn. But, Scott, it would also put the entire city of Miami Beach and much of South Florida underwater.” NBC Nightly News and ABC World...

A slow-motion and irreversible collapse of a massive cluster of glaciers in Antarctica has begun, and could cause sea levels to rise across the planet by another 4 feet within 200 years, scientists concluded in two studies released Monday. Researchers had previously estimated that the cluster in the Amundsen Sea region of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would last for thousands of years despite global climate change. But the new studies found that the loss is underway now as warming ocean water melts away the base of the ice shelf, and is occurring far more rapidly than scientists expected.

Two studies released Monday signal that five glaciers in West Antarctica are undergoing irreversible decline over the next several hundred years, signaling sea level-rise of nearly four feet. Five glaciers that feed continental ice from Antarctica into the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean – glaciers long seen as the soft underbelly of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet – are undergoing irreversible decline, two new studies indicate.

OSLO (Reuters) - Part of East Antarctica is more vulnerable than expected to a thaw that could trigger an unstoppable slide of ice into the ocean and raise world sea levels for thousands of years, a study showed on Sunday. The Wilkes Basin in East Antarctica, stretching more than 1,000 km (600 miles) inland, has enough ice to raise sea levels by 3 to 4 meters (10-13 feet) if it were to melt as an effect of global warming, the report said. The Wilkes is vulnerable because it is held in place by a small rim of ice, resting on...

The Earth hasn’t warmed in 17 years. The Arctic ice cap haven’t melted by 2013 as Al Gore suggested in 2007. Instead like the Antarctic ice cap it has grown. Nearly every computer model created by global warming scientists has turned out to be a massive exaggeration if not outright false. Despite all of this the UN has doubled down on their extremist global warming/climate change theories. Meanwhile Adam Weinstein of Gawker wants to imprison “climate change deniers.” Rather than have a spirited scientific debate, Weinstein wants the matter declared settled science. As George Will mused several months back, when...

Top boffins from the British Antarctic Survey say that the Pine Island Glacier - famous as a possible major cause of global-warming-powered sea level rises - was melting just as fast thousands of years ago as it is melting today. “This paper [just published] is part of a wide range of international scientific efforts to understand the behaviour of this important glacier," explains Professor Mike Bentley, one of the leaders of a BAS effort to find out what's going on with the PIG. "The results are clear in showing a remarkably abrupt thinning of the glacier 8000 years ago," adds...

Arctic, Antarctic, who cares? The science is settled. Just look at this hockey stick. So what if itâ€™s really a baseball bat. The science is settled, I tell you. We settled it one weekend and now itâ€™s settled for good. At 8 min. 30 seconds in, Nye holds up a picture of Arctic and asks: â€˜Would you say that the Antarctic has less ice than it used to?â€™Climate Depotâ€™s Answer: NO! See: Antarctic Sea Ice Extent is on track to have highest minimum in modern satellite era! Â– Â‘Sea Ice Extent is 27.4% above normal as of Feb 7 2014â€²Er,...

St. Petersburg, February 14, Interfax - An Orthodox church of the Holy Trinity located at the Russian Antarctic station Bellingshausen will be sanctified on Friday, the press service for the Research Institute for the Arctic and Antarctic has reported. The church turns 10 on February 14, the press service reported. The polar explorers from the Russian Antarctic expedition suggested the creation of an Orthodox chapel back in the late 1990s. That offer was upheld and an Orthodox church was build at the station. The construction of the church began in fall 2001 in Altai. The main materials used in its...

THE Federal Government will seek the full costs incurred during the recovery effort to save the MV Akademik Shokalskiy. Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt yesterday said costs, estimated at about $2.4 million, would be sought from the insurer of the operators of the vessel.

Finding dinosaurs in Antarctica is both easier and harder than finding them on another continent. Easier, because like looking for meteorites, dinosaur bones show up against the stark landscape. Harder, because the dinosaur's cold-bloodedness wouldn't have lasted long prior to continental drift and climate changes. Antarctic Lost Worlds Tale of Two Dinosaursbased on National Science Foundation report Against incredible odds, researchers working in separate sites, thousands of miles apart in Antarctica have found what they believe are the fossilized remains of two species of dinosaurs previously unknown to science. Life on the Edge. South Pole view from Space.Credit: NASA One...

Dinosaur discoveries wow Boston Sensational fossil discoveries were unveiled on Monday, including the most primitive wishbone yet found in a dinosaur. Also presented was an exquisite skull from a tiny crocodile that could help provide vital new evidence on when the landmasses of Africa and South America split to take up their current positions on the planet's surface. The finds were described by Paul Sereno, one of the world's leading dino hunters, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. Dr Sereno, from the University of Chicago, told the meeting that science was ...

New Dinosaur Species Found in India 2 hours, 55 minutes ago Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo! By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Associated Press Writer BOMBAY, India - U.S. and Indian scientists said Wednesday they have discovered a new carnivorous dinosaur species in India after finding bones in the western part of the country. AP Photo Missed Tech Tuesday? Check out the powerful new PDA crop, plus the best buys for any budget The new dinosaur species was named Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found. The dinosaurs...

A giant valley deeper than the Grand Canyon is buried beneath several miles of glacial ice in West Antarctica, according to a new study by British scientists. The sub-glacial canyon is nearly two miles deep, 200 miles long and 15 miles wide.

The comedy just keeps on coming. Plus, now it seems that Turney failed to get some approvals, and his welcome home may not be all the happy. Maybe he’ll stay in Antarctica. After having to prematurely abandon their mission due to being stuck in ice, and having a weather forecast provided that said all they had to do was wait a few more days, which came true, freeing the ship, the intrepid Dr. Turney and his gaggle of global warming geese tourists were evacuated by helicopter to the Aurora Australis, which then sailed to the Australian Casey Station to finish...

Yes, yes, just to get the obligatory ‘of courses’ out of the way up front: of course ‘weather’ is not the same as ‘climate’; and of course the thickest iciest ice on record could well be evidence of ‘global warming’, just as 40-and-sunny and a 35-below blizzard and 12 degrees and partly cloudy with occasional showers are all apparently manifestations of ‘climate change’; and of course the global warm-mongers are entirely sincere in their belief that the massive carbon footprint of their rescue operation can be offset by the planting of wall-to-wall trees the length and breadth of Australia, Britain,...

Members of the Antarctic expedition trapped in the regions icy tundra have pledged to plant "thousands" of trees to "cover" the carbon footprint resulting from their rescue. The Russian ship Akademik Shokalskiy became lodged in ice on Christmas Eve during a research study on global warming. Debate has heated up, no pun intended, over exactly how many trees will need to be planted to offset the rescue effort's "damage." The expedition had pledged to plant about 800 kauri trees in Northland to cover its carbon footprint. Environmentalists believe planting trees helps to offset the impact of burning fuels such as...

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A U.S. Coast Guard heavy icebreaker left Australia for Antarctica on Sunday to rescue more than 120 crew members aboard two icebreakers trapped in pack ice near the frozen continent's eastern edge, officials said. The 122-meter (399-foot) cutter, the Polar Star, is responding to a Jan. 3 request from Australia, Russia and China to assist the Russian and Chinese ships because "there is sufficient concern that the vessels may not be able to free themselves from the ice," the Coast Guard said in a statement. The Russian research ship Akademik Shokalskiy has been trapped in ice-clogged...

When last we left our heroes, they had successfully evacuated 52 global warming scientists from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, a Russian ice breaker that was stranded by ice for 10 days. A Chinese ship, the Xue Long, used a helicopter to ferry the scientists â€” who still insist the Antarctic ice is melting due to global warming â€” to an Australian ice breaker that is now on the way back home.But rather than get the girl and live happily ever after, the Chinese ice breaker itself has now become trapped by sea ice.BBC reports: The Chinese ice-breaker that helped...

[Carbon Off-Set:] A total of 800 kauri trees will be planted which during the first 50 years of their life will offset more than the total carbon used to fuel the AAE. Kauri of course lives much longer than this and is even known to reach ages of more than 2,000 years. The amount of carbon assimilated by the trees was calculated using the kauri growth calculator based on many field studies and research.

The Supreme Court of Iceland has ordered a halt to road construction because of the environmental impact on the elves. Most of the modern world no longer believes in elves, fairies or gnomes; but environmentalists still do. Members of the environmentalist terrorist group Earth Liberation Front refer to themselves as “elves” and to their acts of sabotage and vandalism as “elving” or “pixieing.” Environmentalist eco-pagans divided themselves into “fairies” and “trolls” with the fairies sticking to non-violence while the trolls were more apt to get physical. The Dragon Environmental Network, which in its own words “links environmental action with magical...

"Sydney — All 52 passengers who spent Christmas and New Year trapped on an icebound Russian research vessel in Antarctica were airlifted from the ice Thursday in a dramatic rescue mission. A Chinese helicopter which landed on a makeshift landing pad next to the marooned ship ferried the scientists, tourists and journalists in groups of 12 to an Australian government supply ship, the Aurora Australis. The passengers had been stuck for 10 days in thick pack ice ...........